Beijing: China’s military has blasted a dam to release floodwaters threatening one of its most heavily populated provinces, as the death toll in widespread flooding rose to at least 25.

The dam operation was carried out late Tuesday night in the city of Luoyang, just as severe flooding overwhelmed the Henan provincial capital of Zhengzhou, trapping residents in the subway system and stranding them at schools, apartments and offices.

Another seven people were reported missing, provincial officials said at a news conference.

A video posted on Twitter by news site The Paper showed subway passengers standing in chest-high muddy brown water as torrents raged in the tunnel outside. Transport and work have been disrupted throughout the province, with rain turning streets into rapidly flowing rivers, washing away cars and rising into people’s homes.

At least 10 trains carrying about 10,000 passengers were halted, including three for more than 40 hours, according to Caixin, a business news magazine.

A blackout shut down ventilators at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, forcing staff to use hand-pumped airbags to help patients breathe, according to the city’s Communist Party committee. It said more than 600 patients were being transferred to other hospitals.

The precise times and locations of the deaths and disappearances weren’t immediately clear, although the province said more than 100,000 people have been evacuated to safety.

Henan province has many cultural sites and is a major base for industry and agriculture. It is crisscrossed by multiple waterways, many of them linked to the Yellow River, which has a long history of bursting its banks during periods of intensive rainfall.

State media on Wednesday showed waters at waist height, with rain still coming down.

To the north of Zhengzhou, the famed Shaolin Temple, known for its Buddhist monks’ mastery of martial arts, was also badly hit.

China routinely experiences floods during the summer, but the growth of cities and conversion of farmland into subdivisions has worsened the impact of such events. 

Kathmandu: Nepal’s new Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on Sunday comfortably won a vote of confidence in the House of Representatives, ensuring continuity of the twice dissolved lower house of Parliament for the remaining duration.

Deuba, the 75-year-old chief of the Nepali Congress who was appointed as the prime minister as per the Article 76(5) of the Constitution on July 12 following Supreme Court’s intervention, secured 165 votes in the 275-member house on Sunday.

A total of 136 votes were required for Deuba to win Parliament’s confidence.

As many as 249 lawmakers participated in the voting process and 83 of them voted against Deuba while one lawmaker remained neutral.

“I hereby declare that the motion of the vote of confidence tabled by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has been endorsed with a majority, House Speaker Agni Sapkota announced.

The proposal for the vote of trust was registered in the Parliament Secretariat on Sunday, the very first day of the session of the reinstated lower house.

Previously, Deuba has served as the prime minister on four occasions; first from 1995 to 1997, then from 2001 to 2002, again from 2004 to 2005, and from 2017 to 2018.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Deuba on his success.

“Congratulations Prime Minister @DeubaSherbdr and best wishes for a successful tenure. I look forward to working with you to further enhance our unique partnership in all sectors, and strengthen our deep-rooted people-to-people ties,” Modi tweeted.

Deuba took the oath of office and secrecy for a record fifth time on July 13, a day after a five-member Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana reinstated the dissolved House of Representatives for the second time in five months.

President Bidya Devi Bhandari had dissolved the lower house for the second time in five months on May 22 at the recommendation of Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli and announced snap elections on November 12 and November 19.

Deuba had staked the claim to form the government as per the Article 76(5) with the support of 149 lawmakers but President Bhandari had invalidated the claim, along with that made by Oli saying both claims were insufficient.

After the apex court’s intervention, President Bhandari had summoned the meeting of both the Houses of the Parliament on Sunday.

In the lower house of Parliament, the ruling Nepali Congress (NC) has 61 members while its coalition partner CPN (Maoist Center) has 48 members, excluding Speaker Sapkota.

The main Opposition CPN-UML, which is Oli’s party, has 121 members in the lower house, the JSP has 32 members and the other three fringe parties have a member each. There is an independent lawmaker as well.

The Nepali Congress, CPN Maoist Centre and Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal lawmakers voted in favour of Deuba. The Thakur-Mahato faction of the JSP-N also decided to support Deuba at the last minute.

Close to a dozen lawmakers of the UML left the House after Deuba’s victory was certain. However, the remaining 22 lawmakers, including Madhav Kumar Nepal himself, voted for Deuba.

Interestingly, as many as 8 lawmakers from the Oli faction voted in Deuba’s favour. All in all, around 30 lawmakers from the opposition party defied the party whip to vote against Deuba.

Former prime minister and senior leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) Jhalanath Khanal, who is undergoing treatment at a hospital in New Delhi, had issued a statement, asking his party’s lawmakers to vote in favour of Deuba.

With his victory, Deuba is set to remain prime minister for a year and a half, until elections are held.

Nepal plunged into a political crisis on December 20 last year after President Bhandari dissolved the House and announced fresh elections on April 30 and May 10 at the recommendation of Prime Minister Oli, amidst a tussle for power within the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP).

On February 23, the apex court reinstated the dissolved House of Representatives, in a setback to embattled Prime Minister Oli who was preparing for snap polls.

New Delhi: Most three-years-old may find it difficult to even form a sentence, but not child prodigy Chryseis Knight who holds the rare distinction of being one of the youngest authors in the world.

“The Great Big Lion”, drawn and written by child prodigy Knight, is a story about lion and two children. It talks about friendship, inclusivity, wildlife conservation and the world of imagination.

Earlier published independently abroad, the book was released on Monday for the first time in India under Penguin Random House India’s ‘Puffin’ imprint.

Knight, who is currently residing in Canada, learnt how to read at the age of one, started writing the story of “The Great Big Lion” in her notebook when she was three years old. She then shared it with her family and became determined to do the artwork with the motivation of getting the book published.

Now seven-years-old, she hopes to inspire children all around the world to embrace the magic in books.

“Tremendously excited that we are publishing this unique book that was written and illustrated by Chryseis when she was merely three! Her writings have an endearing quality; it speaks to children and resonates with them, and the themes she covers are wide-ranging: from wildlife conservation to developing empathy. It is not surprising that she was inducted into Mensa at age two for her linguistic talents. She’s exceptionally gifted and we look forward to her writing career as she grows up,” said Arpita Nath, commissioning editor, Penguin Random House.

New Delhi: Ahead of a likely organisational and government reshuffle in Punjab, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday met poll strategist Prashant Kishor at his residence.

Other party leaders like Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, AICC general secretary Punjab-in-charge Harish Rawat and KC Venugopal were also present during the meeting where they are learnt to have discussed the party’s overhaul in Punjab and efforts to end factionalism in the state unit ahead of assembly elections.

Kishor had earlier met Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on the impending changes in the Punjab Congress.

Amarinder Singh and Navjot Singh Sidhu, who have been at loggerheads, have made a number of public statements against each other in recent months. Amid the tiff, the Gandhis have met the Punjab chief minister and Sidhu separately.

There was no official word on what was discussed at the meeting with Kishor which lasted about an hour, but sources said the new Punjab Congress body would be announced in the next few days and the discussions were focused on it.

There have been hectic deliberations over the past few days over the likely changes in the Punjab government and the party’s state unit.

Both Sidhu and Amarinder Singh have also met the three-member AICC panel headed by Mallikarjun Kharge. The panel had earlier submitted its report to the Congress chief with its recommendations.

The CM had then said any decision taken by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi would be acceptable to him and the party.

The role for Sidhu in the organisation has remained a sticking point from the beginning as he is keen on the post of PCC chief, which is not acceptable to the chief minister, according to party sources.

KABUL: A high powered Afghan government delegation, which will include the head of the country’s reconciliation council, is to meet the Taliban in Doha to jump-start a long-stalled peace process, two Afghan officials said Tuesday.

The two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said the Taliban were expected to bring their senior leaders to the table when the two sides meet, possibly on Friday.

The Taliban maintain a political office in the Qatar capital of Doha.

The latest attempt to revitalize peace talks comes as the U.S. all but winds up its ‘forever war’ in Afghanistan.

The development comes after outgoing U.S. commander Gen. Scott Miller warned that increasing violence seriously hurts Afghanistan’s chances of finding a peaceful end to decades of war.

It a also comes as Taliban fighters surge through district after district taking control of large swaths of the country.

Although the exact number of districts now under Taliban control is not known, it is believed they now rule in more than a third of Afghanistan’s 421 districts and district centers.

Several of the districts are strategic, bordering neighbors Iran, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

The surge has also exposed weaknesses within the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces as many districts fell without a fight and more than 1,000 soldiers fled to Tajikistan.

There have been repeated reports of troops not receiving resupplies or being left without reinforcements, often outgunned and outnumbered by their Taliban adversaries.

While the Taliban have sought to show images of soldiers peacefully surrendering, there have been reports of killings and atrocities being committed.

The talks planned for Doha will be led by Abdullah Abdullah, who heads Afghanistan’s reconciliation council.

They are reportedly intended to plot a way forward that could end the violence that has steadily increased since the U.S.

signed a deal with the insurgent movement in February last year.

Former president Hamid Karzai, who is expected to be among the Kabul delegates to participate in the Doha talks, held a news conference Tuesday in the capital saying peace was coming to Afghanistan and urging the country’s youth to stay in the country.

Karzai’s urging came as France urged its citizens to leave Afghanistan and announced it was arranging a special flight Saturday to evacuate them from Kabul.

There was no indication the French Embassy would be closed.

Australia has closed its embassy.

While the U.S. has downsized, it says it has no plans to evacuate and announced its visa section had re-opened after temporarily closing due to a COVID-19 outbreak.

Meanwhile, Karzai called on the government to seize the moment and press ahead toward peace.

“I want to call on the Afghan government to not miss the opportunity for peace, do your best to make peace and create a national government through peace,” Karzai said.

“I want to say on both sides that you are the owner of this land, sit with each other and make peace.”

He expressed hope that one day Afghanistan would have a woman as president.

“This country has everything, youths, educated people….I call on the young generation to not leave your country, stay here…..You must trust in your country, peace will come,” he said.

“I call on women to continue working in offices and continue your educations….I hope the day comes that a woman will become the president of Afghanistan.”

But even as the former president spoke of peace, another explosion rocked the capital Kabul on Tuesday, killing four people and wounding 11 others, according to police spokesman Ferdaws Faramaz.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Taliban and government accuse each other of carrying out attacks in the capital, while the Islamic State group often is the only one to claim an attack.

BRUSSELS: European Union nations approved the pandemic recovery plans of the bloc’s four biggest economies and eight other member countries Tuesday, a move seen as a bellwether for an economic revival from the unprecedented recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The nations include the EU’s economic juggernauts – France, Germany, Italy and Spain – and Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal and Slovakia.

“EU funding can now start to flow to finance much-needed reforms and investments in each of these countries. But this is only the start,” EU Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said.

The green light to prepare for the release of funds is a key step in an 800 billion-euro (USD 950 billion) support program that EU members agreed on in principle last summer when their economies were mired in the worst economic downturn of the bloc’s existence.

Tuesday’s agreement will allow the 12 nations to unlock 13 per cent of pre-financing, perhaps as soon as the end of the month, Dombrovskis said.

In the case of France, which is to get some 40 billion euros USD 47.3 billion from the pandemic recovery fund, that would amount to 5.1 billion euros (USD 6 billion.) EU Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said the action “will boost confidence in the markets, in countries, and allow investments and reforms to start.

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After last year’s economic nosedive, EU economies are set to rebound by their highest levels in decades as coronavirus restrictions ease.

They remain at risk, however, due to virus variants that are causing infections to spike again in several countries.

Dombrovskis expressed optimism.

“As business confidence grows, investments pick up and people begin to spend more on. The economy is forecast to rebound somewhat faster than previously expected.”

Other EU members are expecting approvals of their recovery plans later in the summer although Hungary could pose a potentially divisive problem.

The EU’s executive commission is currently working past a Monday deadline to vet Hungary recovery plan amid allegations Budapest might not meet all the requirements to tap into the funds.

Critics have said that corruption safeguards might be insufficient in the Hungarian plan.

NEW DELHI: Jyotiraditya Scindia on Friday took charge of the Civil Aviation Ministry.

He joined BJP in March 2020 and is a Rajya Sabha member.

General V K Singh also took charge as the Minister of State for Civil Aviation.

Scindia has taken over the charge of the ministry at a time when the civil aviation sector is facing strong headwinds due to the coronavirus pandemic which has impacted overall demand and has also resulted in financial woes for the industry players.

The government is also moving ahead with the disinvestment process for the national carrier Air India.

Scindia has served as a Minister of State for Communications, Commerce and Industry and power during the Congress-led UPA government.

The scion of the former royal family of Gwalior was inducted into the UPA government in 2007 and remained a part of the Union Cabinet till 2014.

He resigned from Congress and joined BJP in March 2020.

His move triggered a chain of events that finally culminated in the collapse of the Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh and paved the way for the saffron party to assume power which it lost towards the end of 2018.

Born on January 1, 1971, and educated in Harvard and Stanford institutions, Scindia has traversed a long way after contesting his maiden election as a Congress candidate in 2002, a bypoll in the Guna Lok Sabha constituency, which was held because of the sudden death of his father, Madhavrao Scindia, in a plane crash.

WASHINGTON: US drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech have announced that they will seek regulatory authorisation for a third dose of their Covid-19 vaccine.

The companies said they believe a third dose of the mRNA vaccine has the potential to preserve the highest levels of protective efficacy against all currently known variants including Delta.

But US top federal agencies said Americans don’t need boosters yet and said it was not up to companies alone to decide when they might be needed.

The joint statement issued by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease and Control (CDC), saying Americans do not need booster shots yet. This joint statement released after Pfizer issued its statement.

“Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster shot at this time,” they said

The US government officials have stressed that fully vaccinated people have a low risk of infection, even from the Delta or B.1.617.2 variant, which is more transmissible than earlier lineages of the virus.

In a joint statement, Pfizer and its partner BioNTech said the evidence they have evidence of showing antibody levels five to ten times higher than the original coronavirus and the Beta variant first found in South Africa.

“Pfizer and BioNTech have seen encouraging data in the ongoing booster trial of a third dose of the current BNT162b2 vaccine. Initial data from the study demonstrate that a booster dose given 6 months after the second dose has a consistent tolerability profile while eliciting high neutralization titers against the wild type and the Beta variant, which are 5 to 10 times higher than after two primary doses,” read the statement.

“The companies expect to publish more definitive data soon as well as in a peer-reviewed journal and plan to submit the data to the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), EMA (European Medicines Agency) and other regulatory authorities in the coming weeks,” the statement said.

Pfizer and its partner BioNTech said evidence was building that people’s immunity starts to wane after they have been vaccinated.

“As seen in real-world data released from the Israel Ministry of Health, vaccine efficacy in preventing both infection and symptomatic disease has declined six months post-vaccination, although efficacy in preventing serious illnesses remains high,” Pfizer said.

Clinical studies could begin as early as August, subject to regulatory approvals, the companies said.

Washington: As many as 36 US states and Washington DC have filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the search engine giant’s control over its Android app store violates antitrust laws.

The lawsuit alleges that through a series of exclusionary contracts and other anticompetitive conduct in the Google Play Store, Google has deprived Android device users of robust competition that could lead to greater choice and innovation, as well as significantly lower prices for mobile apps.

New York Attorney General James and the coalition co-led by the attorneys general of Utah, North Carolina, and Tennessee also accuse Google of requiring app developers selling in-app digital content through apps purchased via Google’s Play Store to use Google Billing as a middleman, forcing app consumers to pay Google’s commission up to 30 per cent indefinitely.

Google has served as the gatekeeper of the internet for many years, but, more recently, it has also become the gatekeeper of our digital devices resulting in all of us paying more for the software we use every day, James alleged.

Once again, we are seeing Google use its dominance to illegally quash competition and profit to the tune of billions. Through its illegal conduct, the company has ensured that hundreds of millions of Android users turn to Google, and only Google, for the millions of applications they may choose to download to their phones and tablets, she said.

Worse yet, Google is squeezing the lifeblood out of millions of small businesses that are only seeking to compete. We are filing this lawsuit to end Google’s illegal monopoly power and finally give voice to millions of consumers and business owners, James said.

The lawsuit alleges that Google imposes technical barriers that strongly discourage or completely prevent third-party app developers from distributing apps outside the Google Play Store.

Specifically, Google builds into Android a series of misleading security warnings and other barriers that discourage users from downloading apps from any source outside Google’s Play Store, effectively foreclosing app developers and app stores from direct distribution to consumers, it alleges.

Google has not allowed Android to serve as an open source for many years, effectively cutting off potential competition.

Google forces OEMs that wish to design their devices to use Android to enter into agreements called Android Compatibility Commitments or ACCs. Under these take it or leave it agreements, OEMs must promise not to create or implement any variants or versions of Android that deviate from the Google-certified version of Android, the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit alleges that Google buys off its potential competition in the market for app distribution.

Google forces app developers and app users alike to use Google’s payment processing service Google Play Billing to process any payments for purchases of digital content made in apps obtained through the Google Play Store, it said.

Thus, Google is unlawfully tying the use of Google’s payment processor which is a separate service within a separate market for payment processing within apps to distribution through the Google Play Store. By forcing this tie, Google is able to extract an exorbitant processing fee for each transaction, as high as 30 per cent, and many times higher than payment processing fees charged in competitive markets, it alleged.

NEW DLEHI: Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has termed “total nonsense” the claims that his government was involved in alleged abduction of diamantaire Mehul Choksi, wanted in Rs 13,5000 crore scam in Punjab National Bank, from Antigua and Barbuda, neighbouring local media there reported.

Skerrit refuted the allegations of a plot between India and Dominica government to kidnap Choksi from neighbouring Caribbean country Antigua and Barbuda, where he was staying since 2018 as a citizen, after fleeing from India, and bring him to Dominica, the news portal reported.

“To say that the government of Dominica and the government of Antigua along with India colluded in any way, give me a break, that’s total nonsense. We don’t get involved ourselves in those kinds of activities, those practices, not at all. I mean that is absurd and we reject it and it is unfortunate that anybody would want to propagate this unsubstantiated claim by a gentleman who is before the courts,” he was quoted as saying by Dominica News Online.

He further said “whether it would be fair for a local who commits murder in Dominica and flees to another country, is allowed to roam free or instead be apprehended and sent back to Dominica to face his charges”.

Citing the case of a Dominica citizen wanted by the United States whose extradition proceedings are going on in courts to counter opposition on Choksi, Skerrit said the country cannot treat people differently depending on who they are or how much money they may have.

“All of us are subjected to the laws irrespective of our position or how much money we may have or how much we don’t have. And I believe that in this circumstance…Dominica has a right and obligation to apprehend this person and bring the person before the courts and let the courts determine,” he said.

“We here in Dominica with the opposition talking about Choksi but there is a young boy from Grand Bay…Where there is an extradition request by the United States government on allegations that he committed a crime in St Thomas and we are mandated and obligated to apprehend him.

“And the police acted on the instruction of the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) arrested the young man and he is remanded at the state prison awaiting his extradition hearing. His lawyers will fight his case. If the courts believe that there is no reason to extradite him to the United States then he will go freely,” Skerrit said.

Choksi’s lawyer in Dominica Justin Simon claimed that United Kingdom’s Metropolitan Police, known as Scotland Yard, has started looking into allegations of torture and kidnapping of Choksi as citizens there were allegedly part of the plot, the news site reported.

Simon told media that there will be international implications if Dominica or Antigua turns out to be involved in the alleged plot, it said.